Chang, H. J. (2002). Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. London: Anthem Press.
Chang documents that Britain and the United States, the supposed homes of free trade, used tariff protection, subsidies, and directed credit to develop their industries when they were in catching-up positions, and later denied developing countries the same tools. The title is Friedrich List’s phrase for the practice of a developed country pulling up the developmental ladder behind itself. The book is the primary contemporary economic-history reference for the claim that retention mechanisms were the historical norm for successful industrializers and not, as neoliberal doctrine implies, deviations from a free-trade default. Chang’s causal attributions of specific growth outcomes to specific tariffs are contested by orthodox economic historians (Irwin in particular), but the underlying documentation is not in dispute.